


Fascination

by AstronautSquid



Series: Stages of Appreciation [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Feelings, Finger Sucking, Hand & Finger Kink, M/M, Pirate Kink, Post-Canon, past trauma, sexual knee-touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 16:05:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10722621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstronautSquid/pseuds/AstronautSquid
Summary: “Pirates,” was all James rasped above him.“A general history thereof,” Thomas agreed. “Detailing the most fearsome scoundrels to ever plague the high seas. Though I have to say, this likeness doesn’t quite do you justice. Your moustache is not as ridiculously curly as that.”





	Fascination

**Author's Note:**

> And here I thought I could write cute pirate!kink sex without lapsing into Feelings. WELL.
> 
>  _A General History of the Pyrates_ exists within the show, so I'm assuming Flint has his own section, given his decade-long career terrorizing the Bahamas.
> 
> Let it be noted that Thomas' canon feelings on Flint's deeds are probably a bit more complicated but... sometimes A Man Has Needs. And I'll admit to 300% self-indulgence here.

“That’s new,” James remarked as he shrugged out of his coat, hanging it on a hook by the door. Despite his original intentions, they hadn’t moved quite so far inland that the breezes didn’t still carry the ocean’s breath to sneak its wily fingers into every fold they could reach.

Thomas looked up from where he was curled up with a book in his favourite armchair. A cup of tea stood on the window sill, forgotten. He was feeling pleasantly warm already, but the sight of James, wind-swept, tousled and flushed, only caused his blood to rise further.

He had spent a good hour or two earlier blankly staring at his own hands, in that curious state of disconnect that occasionally came over him since his time in Bethlam. Those spells had lessened in frequency since then, had already worn off during his stay at the labour camp, which he attributed to the physical work slowly grounding him back inside his own skin. Nevertheless, that curious affliction continued to hound him, if rarely. Burrowing into a stimulating book or pleasant fantasy helped, after.

James had noticed of course, but he never quite knew what to do, since Thomas himself disliked talking about it. It usually ended with James staying nearby, reading a book or doing chores with a careful distance between them, letting Thomas initiate contact when he was ready, and simply offering his quiet presence until then.

Thomas was resolved not to mention today's incident. He had spent a while afterwards rearranging objects around the house and then picked up the newest addition to their library, taking his mind off darker things. In fact, he had quite firm plans for the rest of the evening.

“I just bought it today,” Thomas said by way of an explanation and motioned for his lover to come closer.

James pulled off his muddy boots first; there were no servants to clean after them these days. As he came to stand by the armchair, James’ hand slid into the back of Thomas’ hair, easy as breathing and just as thoughtlessly done.

One of Thomas’ hands detached itself from the book for his long fingers to curl around the back of James’ knee. A vulnerable spot. _“The knee,”_ as James had remarked once, _“is where you bend.”_

Thomas had already opened his mouth when he felt the muscle beneath his hand tense. A brief, involuntary pull on his hair, which caused goosebumps unbidden to race down his arms.

“Pirates,” was all James rasped above him.

“A general history thereof,” Thomas agreed. “Detailing the most fearsome scoundrels to ever plague the high seas. Though I have to say, this likeness doesn’t quite do you justice. Your moustache is not as ridiculously curly as that.”

Another soft tug of his hair and Thomas bit his lip, just briefly, to suppress a shudder.

“It used to be.”

Thomas blinked up at James. “It did?”

The expression on James’ face was hard to decipher. A delicate mélange of nostalgia, self-consciousness and… arousal? His green eyes moved from the illustration to fix on Thomas instead, and his brow shifted into puzzlement.

“You like the thought,” James said finally, voice studiously bland, fingertips smoothing circles into Thomas’ scalp.

“Of you, eyes blazing and mustache curled, your blood running hot as you commandeer a ship as if it was your birthright? I must confess I rather do,” Thomas admitted, not breaking eye contact. He was aware of what James must be seeing, that his breath had gone flat, but he was unwilling to feel shame over it. Not after everything. Rather admit it and deal with the aftermath as it developed.

“Some sorry inheritance,” James said softly, eyes dropping back down to the illustration. “To bully a crew of unwashed illiterates into obedience, in order to sail a stolen ship.”

Thomas drew his lips inward, displeased with where the conversation was going. He had been afraid that this might happen, but they had spent enough time discussing their years apart that he had hoped that one day there might be space for - well.

He reached up to take James’ other hand in his own, rubbing his thumb across the knuckles. Smoothed it across the rings on James’ fourth and fifth fingers, before he turned his gaze back to the book.

“Even back then you were so eager to rid yourself of Flint,” Thomas said softly and pulled James’ unresisting hand against his lips. “The intention spelled out to anyone that cared to look.”

“How can you tell?” James asked. His fingers had gone still in Thomas’ hair and rested solid and heavy on the back of his neck. Thomas had to fight the urge to drop his head and push up cat-like into the touch.

Thomas loosened his hand from the soft space behind his lover’s knee and tapped a fingertip against the illustration of Captain Flint’s banner.

“Why would you have that skeleton hold an hourglass if not to represent the fleeting nature of time? If not to show that when the sand had run out, it would be time to lay down that dagger and leave that life behind?”

“Not everything can be put down and walked away from,” James protested but Thomas could tell his heart wasn’t in it. Considering the state he himself was in, he decided a little distraction might not be the worst idea.

“I wouldn’t ever want you to walk away from me,” he said and set the book aside. James looked back up at his words, chest falling on a surprised yet grateful gasp as Thomas’ fingers returned to their spot behind his knee, and slid some short way up. Beneath his fingertips, Thomas traced the inseam up the shadowed inside of James’ thigh. “But I certainly wouldn’t complain if you were to put me down.”

He curled his fingers and dug his nails into the yielding flesh beneath James’ groin. James couldn’t suppress a soft groan and before Thomas could react, a second hand had joined the first on his head and pulled him against James’ middle. He huffed a laugh, the cotton catching his breath moist and hot over James’ stomach. He relaxed his fingers and turned his face to press a kiss to James’ palm. The hard bands of his rings pressed like brands against Thomas' cheek. He looked up to catch his eyes, which were wide and open and full of trembling things, and made Thomas’ chest contract in response.

“Won’t you make me kneel and kiss your rings?” he breathed, already taking James’ fingers into his mouth, and suckled for a moment. He made sure to push his tongue into the sensitive skin of the junction between them before he pulled off again, teeth clinking against the silver. He found himself rewarded with the knowledge of swelling flesh where his chest rested against James’ groin. The state of Thomas' own breeches had been a source of impatient sighs and glances to the door for the past hour. “Won’t you lay claim to your spoils?”

James capitulated. An easy fight to win these days, in Thomas’ experience.

James hiked his knee up onto the arm rest and laid a forearm across Thomas’ chest to push him back into the cushions. Thomas craned his neck back over the backrest until he could feel the shift of flesh between their skulls where their foreheads pressed together, overheated skin against cool, mouths still an offensive two fingers’ breadths apart.

“And you’d prefer that over your reading?” James asked, resisting all of Thomas’ attempts to close the distance between them. So much for capitulation - with their faces so close, Thomas could see that there was something waiting, holding its breath within him.

Thomas sent a fingertip traipsing up the line of a strong arm. It lingered quite deliberately where he knew the fabric of his sleeve hid a crescent moon tattoo.

“To be ravished by the dread pirate himself?” he said, sliding the fingertip beneath James’ collar. He couldn’t tell whose shudder it was that shook them first. He felt fit to burst out of his skin and the scant space between their bodies was growing more intolerable by the second. “Who am I to turn down this opportunity to make the carnal acquaintance of Captain Flint himself?”

Thomas cursed himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth, that he had not reined in his lust-addled tongue and instead whispered some sweet nonsense or simply grabbed James and insisted on that kiss after all. But the damage was already done, the heavy shadow of James above him retreating and leaving him feeling exposed like a raw nerve.

“James -”

“Don’t.” James had turned half away, tugging on the cuff of one sleeve that must have come undone while their focus had been elsewhere. Thomas longed to lay fingers on the pulse on the inside of his wrist. James’ fingers fidgeted with his rings, skin and metal still spit-slick from Thomas’ recent ministrations.

“You know I didn’t -” Thomas halted. “I _hope_ you know that I didn’t - I never -”

“I know,” James said, and Thomas was only somewhat surprised by the knowledge that he believed James, when he himself still wasn’t entirely sure how he had intended to conclude that sentence.

Thomas rose from his arm chair, studiously ignoring the hardness between his legs that made his walk ungainlier than usual. He paused just before his hand could touch James’ arm.

“May I?” he asked softly. James gave the barest of nods, and Thomas carefully molded himself to his lover’s back, hands sliding down James’ wrists and stilling there, loosely encircling them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to bring up painful memories. I was - well, frankly I was thinking of that time when I made you put on your dress uniform, do you remember?” Judging by the way James' ears glowed, he remembered quite well. “Be that as it may. I didn’t mean to drag up things that should clearly be left alone. I should have known better.”

After a moment’s silence, James sighed.

“It’s not that I don’t understand the appeal,” he said finally. Thomas could feel his voice resonate all the way through his body where his chest was pressed to James’ back. “Flint is… intoxicating. I am simply growing more and more aware that the separation is not as clean as I made it out to be, and I’m afraid of how much of him I can slip on while still maintaining the comfort of this pretension, that I can let go entirely. Maybe… maybe we can leave this sort of exploration for another time.”

Thomas leant in to kiss the spot just beneath James’ ear, nose brushing against the piercing. “Of course, my love.”

James was quiet for a second more. Then, seemingly having come to some resolution, he turned around and pulled Thomas against him, making it known that his earlier arousal had only abated somewhat. His hands came up to cradle Thomas’ jaw and he finally, _finally_ kissed him. James swallowed the groan of relief and pleasure that escaped Thomas as their mouths met. Thomas couldn’t suppress a shudder at the exquisite feeling of his own over-hot face pressing against skin that was still cool from the stiff breeze outside, James' nose squashed between them with the ardency of his efforts.

Thomas felt the loss keenly when their lips separated.

“Since Captain Flint is not available tonight,” James said into the frankly quite unnecessary space between their mouths, voice down to a warm rumble that did unspeakable things to Thomas, “what say you to being ravished by a simple carpenter instead?”

Thomas didn’t answer but simply pulled him towards the bedroom.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me [on tumblr](http://squid-inspiration.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
